Key Voices

Conservapedia on the NCSE

Someone on Facebook pointed me to the Conservapedia entry on the National Center for Science Education and it’s rather amusing. The first sentence is going to leave you scratching your head a bit, though. It certainly does me. See if you can figure out what the hell this means:

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is an atheistic creature of the US Congress, established as a non-profit organization.

What the hell is a “creature of the US Congress?” It wasn’t created by Congress, it isn’t funded by Congress. In fact, it has almost nothing to do with Congress at all, having no lobbyists and not even very good contacts in DC.

It advocates forcing the teaching the theory of evolution in U.S. public schools, to the exclusion of scientific creationism and intelligent design, which it erroneously contends is a form of creationism.

Oh yes, how erroneous. Where could anyone have possibly gotten the idea that creationism and intelligent design are the same thing? Oh, maybe from the book Of Pandas and People, the first ID textbook. Here’s how that book defined creationism through the first several drafts:

“Creation means that various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator with their distinctive features already intact – fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings, etc.”

And here’s how it defined “intelligent design” after creationism was ruled out of public school science classrooms:

“Intelligent Design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency with their distinctive features already intact: fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings, etc.”

So according to the very same ID advocates that now deny that they mean the same thing, they are word for word identical.

The NCSE is responsible for “Project Steve”, a propaganda campaign based on a logically-fallacious argument ad populum.

Quite the opposite, actually. The whole point of Project Steve was to poke fun at the argumentum ad populum used by creationists, who love to put out lists of “scientists” who believe in creationism.

Of course the NCSE is wholly funded by the Antichrist, AKA Barack Obama! Who needs better logic than that when you’re a fundie?

Owlmirror

See if you can figure out what the hell this means:

1) The page source was copied from some other target of proper conservative scorn and ire, which is in fact a government agency — maybe the EPA.

2) It’s Congress’s fault that such blasphemous things as non-religious non-profits are even allowed. How very dare they! Blame Big Government!

Johnny Vector

How very dare they!

One internets for Owlmirror!

Matt G

Great. Now I need to reboot my irony meter.

http://dododreams.blogspot.com/ John Pieret

It advocates forcing the teaching the theory of evolution in U.S. public schools, to the exclusion of scientific creationism and intelligent design, which it erroneously contends is a form of creationism.

“Scientific” creationism isn’t a form of creationism? Oh, sorry … it is just writing as bad as their thinking.

Randomfactor

Where could anyone have possibly gotten the idea that creationism and intelligent design are the same thing?

Judicial precedent.

Larry

Ya know who else ran a propaganda campaign based on a logically-fallacious argument ad populum?

Hitler.

Just sayin’

Trebuchet

The page hasn’t been edited since 2008 and, to my surprise, “User:Conservative” hasn’t been there. Since you linked his page on you the other day, he’ll probably be watching this site and you can expect an inane screed on that page any day now.

As always, visit Rational Wiki for all your Conservapedia news and fun.

The DI hopes to forget “cdesign proponentsists.” They need to be reminded often.

leni

I almost forgot about “cdesign proponentsists”. God that was funny. The whole “transitional form” joke still warms my heart.

vmanis1

A helpful tip to avoid confusing creationism and intelligent design: in creationism, the designer’s name is God; in ID, God’s name is The Designer.

That should help.

http://dododreams.blogspot.com/ John Pieret

This got me to revisit the Conservapedia page on quote mining (in which I have an interest). I was somewhat pleasantly surprised. While there is still a lot of bullshit, particularly a non-quote mine from faux “journalist,” Denyse (emphasis on “Deny”) O’Leary, there were good bits (some apparently new) such as:

Evolutionists are notorious for expressing objection when their quotes are taken out of context and used against them. This is because scientific truth is determined from scientific evidence, not from authority, so any argument using merely quotations from authority (whether or not it is true), as opposed to the evidence in the scientific literature, is simply irrelevant.

[A]n accusation of “quote mining” is not merely an indictment for appealing to authority, a well-settled tactic indeed – the accusation is of appealing to authority in a selective manner, so as to distort and confound the actual meaning of the authority.

Both Answers in Genesis (AiG) and Henry M. Morris (founder of ICR) have been accused of producing books of mined quotes. TalkOrigins Archive (TOA) states that “entire books of these quotes have been published” and lists prominent creationist Henry M. Morris’ That Their Words May Be Used Against Them and The Revised Quote Book (published by Creation Science Foundation, now AiG, and available from the AiG website)[13] as examples, in addition to a number of online creationist lists of quote-mines.[14] Both AiG and ICR quote mine Stephen Jay Gould on intermediate forms.

It then gives examples of quote mines of Gould and Darwin.

It is almost rational.

http://rationaldreaming.com tacitus

It is almost rational.

The rapidly dwindling core of active editors who are true believers (probably down to single figures) will miss things like that from time to time.

In general, any resemblance to reality or rationality you might find in the pages of Conservapedia is purely accidental.

(I noted, with mild amusement, that in one of Ed’s recent stories, Phillis Schlafly — the mother of the creator of Conservapedia — almost certainly got the information of the number of people the Mongol leader, Tamerlan, killed (17 million) from that liberal bastion of lies, Wikipedia.)

Gvlgeologist, FCD

I have often thought that the existence of “cdesign proponentsists” in the drafts of OPAP could be used as proof of God (or at least the FSM) by the reality-based community. It’s just too convenient to be an accident!

Pierce R. Butler

… an atheistic creature …

Eh? Can anyone name another legitimately pro-science organization with a staff theologian?

ianken

tebuchet@8 : why would I visit rational wiki when pretty much every entry is self indulgent ad hominem screed fest?